U.S. boosts offensive in Iraq

BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- U.S. Army teams struck at a rocket launch site that threatened a Task Force Iron Horse base north of Tikrit, a spokesman said Friday.

Lt. Col. Bill MacDonald of the 4th Infantry Division said seven attackers were killed and one wounded as troops uncovered hundreds of missiles.

Task Force Iron Horse is a joint air and ground force of more than 37,000 troops from more than 10 military installations around the United States.

MacDonald said an AH-64 Apache helicopter first attacked the site Thursday evening after observing the operations.

"A response team from the 1st Battalion, 22nd Infantry, then went to the area and verified the casualties," MacDonald said. "They also found three destroyed vehicles, including a flatbed truck with 50 missiles."


posted by Frodgie at 11:06 AM

 

Over 5 Percent of Ballplayers Positive for Steroids

Suspicions of steroid use had run high recently as bulked-up sluggers set all sorts of home run records. Stars such as Barry Bonds (search) and Sammy Sosa (search) denied taking the drugs.

But on Thursday, the results proved what many in baseball had long assumed: Some players were taking more than vitamins.

"Hopefully, this will, over time, allow us to completely eradicate the use of performance enhancement substances in baseball," commissioner Bud Selig (search) said Thursday after the results were released.

Under baseball's labor contract reached last year, all players were tested this year as part of a survey, with the samples not identified by player. The agreement called for mandatory testing to begin the year after any season in which more than 5 percent of the tests were positive.

The commissioner's office said the threshold has been exceeded, but the exact percentage was not released. The league said of 1,438 anonymous tests this season, between 5 percent and 7 percent were positive.


posted by Frodgie at 11:05 AM

 

Republicans Lose Fight on 3 Bush Judges

Senate Republicans tried to stop debate and end a Democratic filibuster in order to bring the names to the full Senate floor for an up or down vote. But Republicans didn't have enough votes to end debate, a procedure known as getting cloture (search). They need 60 to do so and advance the nominations.

Republicans, who hold 51 seats in the Senate, have failed to advance other controversial appeals court nominees in a dozen previous votes, as well.

"I don't see a way out," said Sen. Lindsey Graham (search), R-S.C., who called for an extra nine hours of debate Thursday night and is considering suing the Senate to ban judicial filibusters. "Nobody is going to change their votes."


posted by Frodgie at 11:03 AM

 

Actor Art Carney Dies at 85

HARTFORD, Conn. — Art Carney (search), who played Jackie Gleason (search)'s sewer worker pal Ed Norton in the TV classic "The Honeymooners" and went on to win the 1974 Oscar for best actor in "Harry and Tonto," has died at 85.

Carney died in Chester, Conn., on Sunday and was buried on Tuesday after a small, private funeral. He had been ill for some time.

The comic actor would be forever identified as Norton, Ralph Kramden's bowling buddy and not-too-bright upstairs neighbor on "The Honeymooners (search)." The characters appeared in various forms from 1951 to 1956, and the show was revived briefly in 1971. The shows can still be seen on cable.


posted by Frodgie at 7:06 AM

 

A Face Transplant?

Ten British people have put their names forward to become the first in the world to undergo a face transplant.

Details on plans for the pioneering operation will be announced by surgeons within days.

Teams on both sides of the Atlantic are now confident they have the skills to attempt the operation.

Surgeons insist the procedure, which involves transplanting an entire face from a corpse to a living person, will only be available for patients with the most severe facial disfigurements - and not as a cosmetic vanity treatment.

The team leading the project in the UK hopes to begin carrying out medical and psychological assessments on the 10 possible candidates early next year.

But the proposal has already sparked huge controversy, with the Royal College of Surgeons preparing to raise new concerns this week.

Their reservations could delay the British team for months - allowing Americans to make the first attempt. A source close to the UK team said: "Things are coming together. It is exciting. There are important hurdles to overcome but things are moving forward."

Momentum for the operation is gathering pace after years of painstaking groundwork. Plastic surgeon Peter Butler, who will lead any UK attempt, believes the radical procedure offers remarkable new hope for patients with very severe facial disfigurements, particularly burns.

Mr Butler, based at London's Royal Free Hospital, argues that the surgery could transform the lives of patients whose appearance cannot be improved using established techniques.


posted by Frodgie at 3:01 PM

 

Targeting the Saudis

THE WORLD’S BIGGEST oil exporter, battling a surge in Islamist violence, said it would hunt down those behind the attack on a housing compound in the Saudi city that left 17 dead and scores more injured.
The Saudi ambassador to Britain, Prince Turki al-Faisal, cited similarities between Saturday’s bombings and previous al-Qaida strikes.
“I must assume that it (Saturday’s attack) is al-Qaida,” Prince Turki told British Broadcasting Corp. radio on Monday. “Al-Qaida, by doing these activities, have raised the ire and the anger of all, most of the Saudis against them.”
The former Saudi intelligence chief, describing the compound of mostly Arab expatriate workers as a soft target, said the kingdom had had successes against militants in the last six months. “There have been many arrests, many discoveries of arms caches, munitions and explosives,” he told Reuters.

posted by Frodgie at 9:37 AM

 

Existential Questions

Destroying Israel is not a legitimate Mideast option.

The genie is out of the bottle. There is a thread linking seemingly disparate events: Mahathir's ovation from Muslim leaders when he called for modernizing the struggle against Israel; Tony Judt's New York Review of Books article calling for a bi-national "alternative" to the Jewish state; and Palestinian demands this week that the British apologize for the Balfour Declaration of 1917. The connection? A resurgent daring to question Israel's right to exist.

Bret Stephens in the Jerusalem Post and Leon Wieseltier in The New Republic have written devastating responses to Judt's article, but as Stephens points out, once a discredited idea becomes only "controversial," the battle has, in some sense, already been lost.

The question is whether calls for Israel's destruction, however politely wrapped, should be an acceptable part of civil discourse. Or as Stephens puts it, "... will the New Republic sack Judt [now a contributing editor] the way ESPN recently sacked Rush Limbaugh for making an arguably derogatory comment about a black football player?" To argue for placing five million Jews under the tender mercies of, as Mahathir Mohamad puts it, "1.3 billion Muslims," is a transparent recipe for dispersion at best, and genocide at worst.

This is not one of those nice, vaguely postmodern ideas that can be harmlessly bandied about, but an old-new fantasy of the same militant Islam that is stalking America. Editors and producers should be as intolerant of such musings as they are of racism, and for the same reason: Both reek of the genocides of the last century.


posted by Frodgie at 9:34 AM

 

Congress Cozies Up to French

"It was sort of a reaction to the current state of U.S.-French relations," said Bob Wickland, spokesman for Rep. Amo Houghton, R-N.Y., who announced he was chairing the new caucus in October. Nearly 35 members have signed on -- not to be apologists, said Wickland, but to foster common interests in foreign issues, including trade and social policy.

"My boss has always been one to look forward and not back," said Wickland. "He thought the relationship was too important to just let things simmer."

So, the new French caucus, which includes about two-dozen Republican and Democratic House members, and six bipartisan Senate members, joins the ranks of an estimated 25 congressional member organizations formed to foster relations with a foreign country.


posted by Frodgie at 9:29 AM

 

Gore Denounces Bush Administration Over Civil Liberties

"They have taken us much farther down the road toward an intrusive, 'big brother'-style government -- toward the dangers prophesied by George Orwell (search) in his book '1984' -- than anyone ever thought would be possible in the United States of America," Gore charged in a speech.

Gore, who lost the disputed 2000 presidential election to Bush, said terrorism-fighting tools granted after Sept. 11 amount to a partisan power grab that have led to the erosion of the civil liberties of all Americans.

He brought many the crowd of 3,000 to their feet when he called for a repeal of the Patriot Act (search), which expanded government's surveillance and detention power, allowing authorities to monitor books people read and conduct secret searches.


posted by Frodgie at 9:27 AM

 

Can you diet your way to longer life?

(CNN) -- Joanne Vizziello is searching for the fountain of youth, but not with facelifts or Botox. She's turning to her diet to help her live longer.

"I wanted to be a healthy, productive senior, and when I turned 40, I looked around and realized I was not on that path," she says.

An incident when an older woman passed her and her friend on a hiking trail was the last straw.

"We're on the side of the trail, huffing and puffing, and she passed us with her backpack going up the trail," Vizziello recalls. "I had to ask her, 'How old are you?' She was 70 years old and I said, 'I want to be that person. I want to be hiking up a trail when I'm 70 years old.'"

posted by Frodgie at 9:20 AM

 

Gore accuses Bush of undermining freedoms

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Former Vice President Al Gore accused the Bush administration Sunday of using the war on terrorism "to consolidate its power and escape any accountability for its use."

Gore said that though the threat of terrorism and the potential use of weapons of mass destruction required speedy action by the executive branch, "President Bush has stretched this new practical imperative way beyond what is healthy for our democracy."

Gore said the Bush administration has sought "to rule by secrecy and unquestioned authority," and he accused Republicans in Congress of aiding the White House by threatening to shut down investigations over political disputes.


posted by Frodgie at 9:18 AM

 

Clear skies provide view of lunar eclipse

posted by Frodgie at 9:58 AM

 

Saudis blame al Qaeda for attack

(CNN) -- The Saudi government Sunday blamed al Qaeda for a car bomb attack on an affluent, residential neighborhood near Riyadh's diplomatic quarter that killed 11 people and wounded scores of others.

The attackers stormed the affluent neighborhood near Riyadh's diplomatic quarter late Saturday, first firing on security guards and then driving their explosives-laden cars through the gates.

Sources told CNN's Caroline Faraj the attackers had apparently stolen a jeep from Saudi security forces to disguise themselves. Saudi guards opened the gate upon seeing the jeep before the attackers opened fire, the sources said.

posted by Frodgie at 9:53 AM